


You Must Know Life To See Decay (But I Won't Rot)

by entropy_maximum (missjmelville)



Series: Graceless [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Post Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missjmelville/pseuds/entropy_maximum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sequel to And You Rip It From My Hands (Well Now You've Won), Inspired by Mumford & Sons After the Storm. I've been working on this off and on for months now, I hope it lives up to expectations.</p>
    </blockquote>





	You Must Know Life To See Decay (But I Won't Rot)

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to And You Rip It From My Hands (Well Now You've Won), Inspired by Mumford & Sons After the Storm. I've been working on this off and on for months now, I hope it lives up to expectations.

Castiel is sobbing and gasping brokenly against the fabric of Dean’s shirt, he’s dizzy and sore and he feels like the room is spinning so fast that the only thing keeping him from flying, from falling, is Dean. He chokes back the urge to laugh hysterically at that, he understands now what irony is.

The ice beneath him is cold and slippery but it buzzes with energy and Grace and Castiel almost thinks he could just reach out and pull it all back into himself yet when he touches the ice with bloody trembling fingers, nothing happens except they get colder. He doesn’t realise he’s shivering hard until Dean’s arms wrap around him solid and warm and suddenly he’s still.

It’s quiet apart from his ragged breathing and the steady _thumpthump_ of his heartbeat in his ears and it’s all just a reminder that he’s human now. He’s had glimpses of this fragility, of this mortality, but never like this. This is permanent, he knows, not some temporary loss of power, this is forever. This is finite.

When he finally looks up from the warmth of Dean’s embrace, Sam and Bobby are gone and it’s weird because he should have heard them leave but for a time all he could hear were the sounds of his own body. He’s shivering so hard that he can’t even stand on his own and Dean’s arm around his waist is warm and strong and for a moment all Castiel wants to do is pull away and yell at Dean because this is all his fault and he doesn’t want, doesn’t need, his help. Instead, he stumbles along next to Dean and tries to ignore the blood drying on his shaking fingers and the numbness in his limbs.

Dean supports Castiel’s shaking body and leads him up to the bathroom, they’re both silent. Dean is gentle as he cleans Castiel’s hands of blood and inspects the wounds, the skin rubbed away at the tips of Castiel’s fingers and Dean disinfects each one methodically before wrapping a band-aid awkwardly on them.

Castiel stares at his bandaged fingers and wishes he had something more, something bigger to mark the tragedy, something more than a few skinned fingers and numb limbs. He feels hollowed out and empty, he feels what he imagines Sam must have felt like without his soul. Something vital is missing and he doesn’t think that he’ll ever get used to the quiet inside his mind where his brothers and sisters used to reside.

Dean doesn’t talk to him, which is good because Castiel thinks he might just punch him if he did, he blames Dean because he can’t bear to think that maybe he was wrong, maybe Dean was right but he can’t blame himself so he blames Dean.

Later, when he’s seated in Bobby’s lounge room warming by the crackling fire, he hears their whispered words, Sam murmuring out ‘in shock’ and ‘withdrawal’ like he’s some kind of doctor and Castiel would laugh if he had the energy and remind them all that he’s fine, that he’s only human. And that’s the problem, he’s only human. Things that he used to be able to do, things that he did on reflex, he can’t do them now and every time he tries to listen to his siblings lilting voices to soothe his anxiety, there’s nothing. He doesn’t know how to explain any of this to the hunters so he keeps quiet and stares into the flames.

He sits for so long like that, hunched over and staring, that his body becomes stiff and sore and when he stands to stretch and spread his wings he gasps and falls to the floor, dizzy. Everything blurs and he realises he’s crying again and then Dean is at his side asking him what’s wrong and he can’t say it because it sounds stupid but he forgot he no longer has wings and the loss is so huge that he can’t catch his breath and his heart is pounding loudly in his ears.

By the time he can breathe normally again he realises he’s been moved. He’s lying on a bed, his chest aches, his eyes are sore, and as if to remind him, once again, that he’s human, his stomach rumbles. Dean must have been there at some point because there’s a glass of water and a sandwich on the nightstand but he’s gone now and Castiel is grateful that he’s being left alone and not bombarded with questions.

Reluctantly he eats the sandwich and drinks the water because as much as he hates that he’s now human, he doesn’t want to die, not again. The food settles uneasily in his stomach, he’s reminded of Famine, and suddenly he’s struggling to keep the food down, rushing to the bathroom across the hall to throw up the contents of his stomach, hands shaking and head pounding.

He washes out his mouth and returns to his room feeling worse than before, his fingers are sore and everything is just _wrong_. He falls asleep on the bed fully clothed.

He wakes up some time later to the sound of raised voices from downstairs, if he stays completely still he can just make out what’s being said and he thinks sadly he would have been able to hear them so much easier before.

Dean’s voice rises above Sam’s yelling, ‘We can’t just dump him off somewhere and hope he’ll be fine! We did this to him Sam, the least we can do is help him adjust!’

‘He was going to kill us all Dean, we can’t trust him,’

‘He’s human now Sam, he can’t _do_ anything,’

There’s silence then and Castiel thinks maybe they’ve stopped talking but he strains his ears and he can make out the rumble of low voices, evidently they realised they were being too loud. He rolls over to stare up at the ceiling and thinks that Sam has the right idea, they should just get rid of him, he has no use now, he’s not an Angel anymore, he’s not God anymore, he can’t help them like he used to.

The days pass slowly and he wonders how anyone can stand it, it’s stifling. He eats, he throws up then he eats some more and slowly his body stops rejecting food, his fingers heal and he gets used to the heavy feeling of everything, the way gravity seems to pull at him in a way it never did before.

He feels awkward and unbalanced as if he’s going to fall over at any second because he doesn’t have his wings to keep him steady or his Grace to aid his way. He shuffles along on his feet like a child afraid the ground is going to open up and swallow him whole. Dean hovers sometimes as if he’s just waiting for Castiel to fall so he can catch him but Castiel just ignores him and focuses on his feet.

He doesn’t talk to anyone so they give up trying to get him to talk, Bobby ignores him for the most part, acts like he’s not there or like he’s just a piece of old furniture that sometimes gets in his way. Sam watches him closely every time he enters the room, eyes full of an anger that has no outlet, anger at Cas for breaking down the wall and not fixing it. Castiel is human and fragile but Sam is fraying at the seams and Dean is equally worried about both of them.

Castiel sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning every night, his dreams full of his brothers and sisters trying to call out to him for guidance because he’s their leader now but he can’t understand them and his ears bleed and he’s screaming at them to stop, crying because he doesn’t understand.

When he wakes up he’s shaking and sobbing, clutching his hand tightly into the pillow to stop himself from punching the wall in anger and desperation. He just wants to know what they’re saying. He just wants to help.

Before he realises it, a whole month has passed and he’s still human, and he’s still alive but he’s so tired of everything already. He has read his way through half of the books in Bobby’s house, including the Bible, which he spent a whole week correcting, red pen held awkwardly in his hand. His writing is small and squiggly but it’s legible, just, and he’s glad he practiced beforehand.

Dean and Sam head out on their first hunt, since _That Day_ as Castiel terms it, a vampire nest two states over and Bobby follows Cas around for the first day to make sure he’s behaving himself. After that, he leaves Castiel alone and he’s grateful that Bobby at least trusts him enough to have free reign of the house.

The brothers return a week later, Dean is limping and Sam has a nasty cut on his forearm but the vampires have been taken care of and no one was turned so they count it as a win. Castiel finds himself relieved that Dean came back and realises he thought the brothers would leave him here with Bobby but he’s glad they didn’t.


End file.
